Oh my, everyone is all excited about Atlanta's Josh Childress signing with Olympiakos of Athens. Hey, $20 million over 3 years (tax free? enjoy, enjoy!) isn't bad by anybody's standards, particularly for a perennial 6th man. And that's not all: Brandon Jennings, a non-qualifier for Division I from Oak Hill Academy, is headed to Virtus Roma, where he will undoubtedly spend a mandatory one year before heading back to the NBA.
In a recent column, Fox Sports' (and Tacoma's - say hi to Mom and Dad!) Mike Kahn wrote about the new west to east direction of international basketball, citing not only the examples of Childress and Jennings, but a number of other examples (Splitter, Delfino, Nachbar, Navarro, etc.). He makes an interesting point that the ridiculous amounts spent on superstars that strangle the NBA salary cap for mid-range players coupled with tight restrictions on young players under the cap's rules (not to metion the strong Euro/awful dollar) are creating a more attractive atmosphere in Europe for signing quality players.
Unfortunately, I'm not sure Mike's analysis translates into a lot more Josh Childres's heading over to Europe for a very simple reason: the money being provided for these big contracts are coming almost solely from a few individuals/oligarchs with some very specific teams - and I can count them on one hand: Oympiakos and Panathinaikos of Athens; CSKA Moscow and maybe Dynamo Moscow and Kimchi (suburb of Moscow). The funding for European's professional basketball teams for the most part still comes from corporate sponsors whose ability and desire to subsidize what is still in almost all cases a losing operation, will ultimately always be limited.
For those few individuals and oligarchs who have endless reels of cash, sure, $10-20 million and a lot more is just a drop in the bucket, but ultimately even very rich people get tired of pouring money down a drain and moreover, these teams are ultimately often just playthings for them - and anyone with kids knows that people get tired of playing with the same toys all the time. I have seen these kinds of individuals come and go now in European basketball for well over 20 years, and ultimately the answer to increasing interest in basketball in Europe is not by finding more oligarchs, but by creating the commercial atmosphere that will encourage investors and companies to put money into creating an attractive - and profitable - product.
Whether that can actually ever happen in European basketball is still a big unknown. The Euroleague and FIBA have made some nice strides in visibility, television rights and merchandising, and the web site content and technologies are quite impressive, but the quality of the product suffers from poor infrastructure, i.e. basketball stadiums, across the entire continent. The subject of arenas is really a separate piece, but it is absoutely incredible when you stop and think that the biggest basketball gym in Russia is in Kazan (cap. 7,100) and that one of Europe's top 3 teams, CSKA Moscow plays in a gym that holds only 5,000. Olympiakos plays in the absolutely awful Peace and Friendship Stadium, which seats 15,000, but has a velodrome encircling the court and fans sit miles away. Basketball in Europe is also still competing with soccer and a host of other sports, as well as 45 top-level European players who have opted to play in the NBA. Needless to say, for every one Josh Childress going to Europe, there are dozens more who still want to go the other way.
As to Brandon Jennings, it could be that there will be a few more like him in the future, as players could opt for making a lot of money in Europe instead of going to college for one year before they can be eligible to play in the NBA; but it's not so simple to take an 18 year old and uproot him into a foreign country with a foreign language and onto a professional team, where they virtually have to take care of themselves, as opposed to a Division I school where they are coddled and taken care of in every way. I could be wrong, but I think we may see that Jennings will be the exception - and not the rule.
Showing posts with label Euroleague. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Euroleague. Show all posts
Friday, July 25, 2008
Thursday, April 10, 2008
Sometimes One Call Can Ruin an Evening...
Sometimes, it doesn't matter. You can have a great evening, making all the right decisions - and then one call ruins everything.
Such was the situation this evening at the Nokia Stadium in Tel Aviv in the quarter-final best-of-three third game between Maccabi Tel Aviv and Barcelona, eventually won by Maccabi 88-75.
Situation: third quarter, Vontego Cummings (ex-Pitt) is guarding Barcelona's hot-shooting Italian guard, Gianluca Basile. Cummings wraps him up under the basket and drags him to the floor- no call! Basile understandably reacts emotionally and kicks back somewhat at Cummings - the two of them engage in some silly slapping at each other while players from both teams separate them, including Maccabi's Derrick Sharp and Esteban Batista, who have come off the bench to intervene. There were no closed fists, and no one even tried to throw a punch.
The referees snap into action and overrreact: Cummings and Basile are ejected, as well as Sharp and Batista. Barcelona is of course the big loser in all of this as Basile, their top scorer (25 ppg in the first two games of the series) heads to the locker room.
Oh, and one other problem: the referees forget to make sure that Batista knows that he's ejected and they leave him on the bench until the begnning of the 4th quarter, when they discover their mistake and send him, too, to the showers. No one understands quite why he has been ejected - very embarassing.
The whole thing was unnecessary. Cummings should have been called for the initial foul, and if anything, he and Basile could have been assessed unsportsmanlike fouls. Sharp and Batista were rightly tossed from the game - but their ejections were administered poorly, to say the least.
The NBA has very clear directives regarding these situations and would have taken care of this very simply: regular foul against Cummings, likely technicals against Cummings and Basile, and they would have stayed in the game. Sharp and Batista would have been tossed for coming off the bench. The key to throwing a player out is whether or not the hand becomes closed in a fist and a punch is thrown (whether it connects or not thereafter is irrelevant). I know Europeans are always wary of American "imperialism", but on matters of basketball officiating, the Euroleague could sometimes try to learn a few things from their American cousins.
Such was the situation this evening at the Nokia Stadium in Tel Aviv in the quarter-final best-of-three third game between Maccabi Tel Aviv and Barcelona, eventually won by Maccabi 88-75.
Situation: third quarter, Vontego Cummings (ex-Pitt) is guarding Barcelona's hot-shooting Italian guard, Gianluca Basile. Cummings wraps him up under the basket and drags him to the floor- no call! Basile understandably reacts emotionally and kicks back somewhat at Cummings - the two of them engage in some silly slapping at each other while players from both teams separate them, including Maccabi's Derrick Sharp and Esteban Batista, who have come off the bench to intervene. There were no closed fists, and no one even tried to throw a punch.
The referees snap into action and overrreact: Cummings and Basile are ejected, as well as Sharp and Batista. Barcelona is of course the big loser in all of this as Basile, their top scorer (25 ppg in the first two games of the series) heads to the locker room.
Oh, and one other problem: the referees forget to make sure that Batista knows that he's ejected and they leave him on the bench until the begnning of the 4th quarter, when they discover their mistake and send him, too, to the showers. No one understands quite why he has been ejected - very embarassing.
The whole thing was unnecessary. Cummings should have been called for the initial foul, and if anything, he and Basile could have been assessed unsportsmanlike fouls. Sharp and Batista were rightly tossed from the game - but their ejections were administered poorly, to say the least.
The NBA has very clear directives regarding these situations and would have taken care of this very simply: regular foul against Cummings, likely technicals against Cummings and Basile, and they would have stayed in the game. Sharp and Batista would have been tossed for coming off the bench. The key to throwing a player out is whether or not the hand becomes closed in a fist and a punch is thrown (whether it connects or not thereafter is irrelevant). I know Europeans are always wary of American "imperialism", but on matters of basketball officiating, the Euroleague could sometimes try to learn a few things from their American cousins.
Monday, December 3, 2007
I'm back refereeing...(American football)
Some of you might be wondering where I've been since I wrote my first blog (on the other hand, of course, some of you may not have been wondering at all!). Truth is that I've had a bunch of posts in Hebrew but haven't taken the time to update my English blog.
Since my last post on Oct. 12, a lot of water has gone under the bridge. The basketball season is in full swing, some of the Euroleague (EL) referees continue to do whatever they want on the court mechanics-wise and the EL isn't looking too hot. CSKA Moscow and Panathinaikos of Athens are clearly head and shoulders above everyone.
Maccabi Tel Aviv is a weak 4-2 in the Euroleague - not only do they not look particularly good (they were shellacked 87-67 last night in the Israeli league by B'nei Hasharon - and it wasn't even that close), but they are a very gray team with little or no athleticism. OK, you can't have Anthony Parker (now starting with Toronto) all the time, but at least get a player who can create some excitement, make a big play, climb above the rim. Hapoel Jerusalem - playing without a 5 and clearly outclassed by Maccabi at this stage - has Timmy Bowers, ex Mississippi State, who while they don't always win, he gets his 6'4"-self way above the rim and gets the crowd going. The best Maccabi can do in terms of athleticism is Will Bynum, the Chicago high school legend out of Georgia Tech, who can also make more turnovers than Pillsbury.
But, I'm coming back to refereeing! Before you all get too excited, let me make it clear that I'm coming back to referee (drum roll please)..........American football! Yes, Israel has a regular tackle league, with four teams playing 8 on 8. I went to a game the other night in Tel Aviv to see the locals play Jerusalem's "Big Blue", and I have to say I was pretty impressed. Except for the Jerusalem team, which is made up mostly of Americans, the other teams are made up of young Israelis, who for the most part learned their football watching NFL all these years on Middle East TV or now on Fox Sports International.
Their fundamentals were rather exceptional - there was one false start the entire game (a lot less than most NFL teams) and a couple of encroachment penalties, and that was it. There were also some great open field tackles. A new immigrant to Israel, Eric Amkraut, who was formerly at Rutgers, has coached the teams and they've done the whole thing right. Even before they donned pads, Eric had them working on fundamentals - stances, cadences, lining-up, rules, blocking, tackling, etc. Doesn't matter that Jerusalem won 48-6 (Tel Aviv had the ball close on 3 occasions and didn't score). Steve Leibovitz, a long-time Jerusalemite from Queens, who in his other life heads up the Israel Broadcasting Authority's English News department, deserves all the credit for putting this together. Originally, Steve set up the flag football league and then spearheaded an effort to establish "Kraft Field" (yes, as in Bob Kraft, owner of the NE Patriots), which with its new synthetic grass, hosts 50 baseball and football games every week. I think this Jerusalem Post article covers the subject better than I ever could.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1195546698384&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
Of course, I couldn't resist and this Saturday night I'm refereeing in the "Chanukah Bowl" between Jerusalem and Haifa. I haven't refereed football for about 30 years, since doing varsity high school games in Seattle, but it should be a lot of fun. They are actually expecting about 500 people to show up at the "Kraft".
Since my last post on Oct. 12, a lot of water has gone under the bridge. The basketball season is in full swing, some of the Euroleague (EL) referees continue to do whatever they want on the court mechanics-wise and the EL isn't looking too hot. CSKA Moscow and Panathinaikos of Athens are clearly head and shoulders above everyone.
Maccabi Tel Aviv is a weak 4-2 in the Euroleague - not only do they not look particularly good (they were shellacked 87-67 last night in the Israeli league by B'nei Hasharon - and it wasn't even that close), but they are a very gray team with little or no athleticism. OK, you can't have Anthony Parker (now starting with Toronto) all the time, but at least get a player who can create some excitement, make a big play, climb above the rim. Hapoel Jerusalem - playing without a 5 and clearly outclassed by Maccabi at this stage - has Timmy Bowers, ex Mississippi State, who while they don't always win, he gets his 6'4"-self way above the rim and gets the crowd going. The best Maccabi can do in terms of athleticism is Will Bynum, the Chicago high school legend out of Georgia Tech, who can also make more turnovers than Pillsbury.
But, I'm coming back to refereeing! Before you all get too excited, let me make it clear that I'm coming back to referee (drum roll please)..........American football! Yes, Israel has a regular tackle league, with four teams playing 8 on 8. I went to a game the other night in Tel Aviv to see the locals play Jerusalem's "Big Blue", and I have to say I was pretty impressed. Except for the Jerusalem team, which is made up mostly of Americans, the other teams are made up of young Israelis, who for the most part learned their football watching NFL all these years on Middle East TV or now on Fox Sports International.
Their fundamentals were rather exceptional - there was one false start the entire game (a lot less than most NFL teams) and a couple of encroachment penalties, and that was it. There were also some great open field tackles. A new immigrant to Israel, Eric Amkraut, who was formerly at Rutgers, has coached the teams and they've done the whole thing right. Even before they donned pads, Eric had them working on fundamentals - stances, cadences, lining-up, rules, blocking, tackling, etc. Doesn't matter that Jerusalem won 48-6 (Tel Aviv had the ball close on 3 occasions and didn't score). Steve Leibovitz, a long-time Jerusalemite from Queens, who in his other life heads up the Israel Broadcasting Authority's English News department, deserves all the credit for putting this together. Originally, Steve set up the flag football league and then spearheaded an effort to establish "Kraft Field" (yes, as in Bob Kraft, owner of the NE Patriots), which with its new synthetic grass, hosts 50 baseball and football games every week. I think this Jerusalem Post article covers the subject better than I ever could.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1195546698384&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
Of course, I couldn't resist and this Saturday night I'm refereeing in the "Chanukah Bowl" between Jerusalem and Haifa. I haven't refereed football for about 30 years, since doing varsity high school games in Seattle, but it should be a lot of fun. They are actually expecting about 500 people to show up at the "Kraft".
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